Teaching to Fidelity

I have been thinking about this latest educational mantra lately. I found, through a little internet research, that I am not the only educator out there who has concerns about "teaching to fidelity" purchased educational programs. The excerpt below is from a blog written by Tony Baldasaro.

"To help students access the math curriculum, schools purchase programs and textbooks.  EveryDay Math, MathConnects, MathScapes, Singapore Math, Glencoe, Prentice Hall, etc.  But, none of these programs or textbooks are meant to replace the teacher and none of them are meant to define a school’s curriculum.  They are, instead, resources that schools and teachers can use to help facilitate students’ learning.  So when my friend asked what I thought of EveryDay Math and whether her concern for her daughter’s readiness for middle school math was valid I replied,

If your daughter is not ready for middle school math, it’s not the fault of the program, its the fault of the teacher.  And, oh by the way, its not really the fault of the teacher because we are slowly eroding their professionalism.

We educate in a time when we allow test scores to dictate student placement, lesson planning and at times, judge teacher effectiveness.  Instead of engaging teachers in meaningful learning experiences to empower their professionalism, we buy canned programs and turn them into technicians, moving from one lesson to another and correcting worksheet after worksheet.  We are stripping our teachers of that which they should be most trained to do, assess the readiness and needs of their students so that they can determine the best way to engage them in learning that allows them to access the curriculum in personally relevant and meaningful ways.  We are instead telling them to be on a certain lesson and to read from a certain script on a certain day.  We have driven professionalism from our teachers, we have trained them to teach programs and not students." (http://www.transleadership.net/?p=703)

I don't know Tony Baldasaro, but I couldn't agree more. It's time to free the students...and the teachers!

What Am I Really Teaching?

I love to read. Reading opens up my mind to things I would not otherwise know about. Reading brings me joy. Reading both enlightens and challenges my thinking.

I teach reading to second graders. I like to think I am teaching them to appreciate reading the way I do. But am I?

In this era of "research-based" reading programs with their "non-negotiable" components I wonder what message I am really teaching my students. My students are required to read the selection in our reading program's reader and they are tested on that selection each week. They are required to take the STAR test, to select library books that are "on their level", and then take the accompanying AR test. Students who take the most AR tests are rewarded by the librarian.

Little time is left for them to explore books just for enjoyment. Little time is left for them to peruse books and abandon them if they aren't interested. Little time is left for them to try out books that they are highly interested in that may be a challenge. Little time is left for me to share my joy and love of reading with my students.


So are my students learning that reading can open up their world to unexpected possibilities? Or are they learning that reading is something you do so you can fulfill their teacher/school's requirements? Are they learning that reading is a race to see who can read the most books?


Recently I read an article by Tom Newkirk entitled Reading is Not a Race.(You can read this article at http://tinyurl.com/6tqgbe6). He ended the article with these words "The goal of reading instruction should not be to rush this process, not to put students on the clock, but to say in every way possible — “This is not a race. Take your time. Pay attention. Touch the words and tell me how they touch you."

It's time to free the students!

Are We Teaching from a Box?

Two things have happened recently that have motivated me to return to my neglected blog. The first was a newspaper article I read about a week ago entitled Schools' standards get A-minus, results get D. The article was a report based on the latest Quality Counts study by Education Week magazine. (If you are interested, the full article by Reva Havner Philips can be found at al.com.) What bothered me was what our state received the highest praise for "...its curriculum standards; its extensive testing to measure student performance..." (emphasis mine). That's what we are praised for??? Extensive testing? What about the teaching? What about the learning? What are we doing to our students and our teachers? No wonder the results received a D.

Speaking of the teachers, last week, I was fortunate to have a student teacher from an area university begin working with me and my students. We talked several times through the week as he prepared to begin teaching. In the course of our conversations, he said, "You are the first teacher I have seen that didn't teach from the Teacher's Manual and just use the worksheets that went along with the lessons"! He apparently has had no experience with teachers that looked for interesting or creative ways to meet the needs of their individual students. Oh my, what a disservice we are doing to our young teachers coming up!

We are teaching from a box and keeping our students in a box. Our insidious and pervasive culture of testing, and teaching to the test is not only preventing us from allowing our current students to explore their own interests and cultivate their own strengths but is well on its way to causing the same for our future students! 

It's time to free the students! And the student teachers!